How could the British school system improve?

[ToastiestZombie]

Lets face it, the British school system is a complete mess: we have people going to uni who don't need to, people who need serious help being grouped in with the rest of the students and we have so many people with degrees that jobs have become much harder to find for people who haven't got one. One thing that really hit me today was when some German kids came to our school for a school trip, and every one of them knew fluent English, I even had a lenghty conversation with one. Whereas in Britain, there is very little people who know any useful French or German by Year 8.

So escapees of Britain (preferably current students), what could the government do to improve the school system here.

I think that there should be much more training for teachers. The amount of teachers I had that would just hand out some sheet or a textbook then go to their computer and not even bother actually teaching us. Also, I think that teachers should be fired if they aren't doing a good job, I find it really sad when a really old and strict teacher gets to stay when a charismatic teacher that teaches in new and inventive ways always seem to go.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Ok well I've just started 6th form in a pretty high standard grammar school so luckily I've managed to escape all the crappiness but I do see a lot of problems.

I think that the way subjects are taught is wrong. People aren't taught a subject, they're taught to pass an exam. The way it's set up means no-one really learns anything long time. I think the way teachers handle students is poor too. The old school style of punishment breeds bitterness in students but the more modern age liberal style doesn't work either. I think teachers should be taught to connect with students better, and in turn that will make them more willing to succeed. I think there's also a fundamental problem in society where young people often feel worthless or have no self respect and so have no incentive to work.

 

[Nevyrmoore]

Oh and one last thing, @the current government: Free schools are a bad idea and you should feel bad.

Exactly what do you mean by this? Public schools in general or something completely different?

 

[ToastiestZombie]

By scrapping the whole fast-tracking thing. If you haven't heard of it, it's basically doing most of your GCSEs a year early, and it's become really prevalent in my area. Which means a couple of things:

-Weaker students lose the will to live
-Stronger students get average grades
-Your APS is unchanged, because it doesn't take into account more than around 8 or so GCSEs.

I had to do it, and it sucks. Oh and one last thing, @the current government: Free schools are a bad idea and you should feel bad.

I had to do that to, I even had to do it for one of my A-Levels. Let me tell you that doing year 10 and 11 work whilst in the mindset of a Year 9 was hell for me.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Oh and one last thing, @the current government: Free schools are a bad idea and you should feel bad.

Exactly what do you mean by this? Public schools in general or something completely different?

The government want to introduce some new type of school run by the local community or something. I'm not really sure how it works. It's different to public schools. Or is that state schools?

I never could work out if public schools were state schools or private schools because it seems to be the latter but that makes no sense

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Needs to be more like university.

I swear, I learned more in that environment than I ever did at school.

One of the key things about uni, is that the only people there, are the people that want to learn, and the only teachers there are the teachers that actually know what the fuck they're talking about.

Solution? Get rid of the kids that only disrupt other's learning and stick them in a room to stare at a wall until they buck their fucking ideas up, and get the teachers who can't teach for shit, to keep an eye on them.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Solution? Get rid of the kids that only disrupt other's learning and stick them in a room to stare at a wall until they buck their fucking ideas up, and get the teachers who don't can't teach for shit, to keep an eye on them.

Well that wouldn't work. Sure, there needs to be a solution, but all that does is completely ruin their prospects. That kind of punishment doesn't work. They need help even if they don't want it at the time

 

[Nevyrmoore]

Oh and one last thing, @the current government: Free schools are a bad idea and you should feel bad.

Exactly what do you mean by this? Public schools in general or something completely different?

The government want to introduce some new type of school run by the local community or something. I'm not really sure how it works. It's different to public schools

Ah, you mean the one where they think that the average citizen can do the same job as a fully trained and paid teacher. Yeah, not exactly sure what the government was thinking there.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Solution? Get rid of the kids that only disrupt other's learning and stick them in a room to stare at a wall until they buck their fucking ideas up, and get the teachers who don't can't teach for shit, to keep an eye on them.

Well that wouldn't work. Sure, there needs to be a solution, but all that does is completely ruin their prospects. That kind of punishment doesn't work. They need help even if they don't want it at the time

From my experience, you can't make someone learn if they don't want to learn, so you either take away resources away from the kids who want to learn (which is worse), in an attempt to educate the disruptive students, or you put them in a situation whereby sitting in class is preferable to doing nothing for 6 hours.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

By scrapping the whole fast-tracking thing. If you haven't heard of it, it's basically doing most of your GCSEs a year early, and it's become really prevalent in my area. Which means a couple of things:

-Weaker students lose the will to live
-Stronger students get average grades
-Your APS is unchanged, because it doesn't take into account more than around 8 or so GCSEs.

I had to do it, and it sucks. Oh and one last thing, @the current government: Free schools are a bad idea and you should feel bad.

in scotland, my school does the Standard Grades and Highers (GCSEs and A-Levels basically) a year earlier.
here, we have the same 1&2 problems. our 3 is worse.
-we have to do some of our Higher exams over 2 years, some over 1. no choice. most universities only accept them in 1 year (because not enough schools do it yet) and you need a minimum of 5. so its almost impossible for me to get into uni, unless i do two Advanced Highers (=year 1 of uni) and 3 highers. in 1 year. it has to be next year.
plus,

Solution? Get rid of the kids that only disrupt other's learning and stick them in a room to stare at a wall until they buck their fucking ideas up, and get the teachers who can't teach for shit, to keep an eye on them.

the problem there is that my school tried that. we lost all but one Geography teacher. who is retiring this year.
and if you arent do well enough, you get kicked out at my school. it nearly happened to some guy i know. shame he bucked up, he's a dickbag.

 

[blaze6012]

This one is easy. Basically wh;oever doesn't want to learn, strap a pick axe to their hands and push them down a mine yelling them good luck.

In all seriousness though the school system is enterly screwed anyways and I don't think it can be helped. Even with more funding/resorces nothing will change as the government will always cut back on things that they need.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Solution? Get rid of the kids that only disrupt other's learning and stick them in a room to stare at a wall until they buck their fucking ideas up, and get the teachers who don't can't teach for shit, to keep an eye on them.

Well that wouldn't work. Sure, there needs to be a solution, but all that does is completely ruin their prospects. That kind of punishment doesn't work. They need help even if they don't want it at the time

From my experience, you can't make someone learn if they don't want to learn, so you either take away resources away from the kids who want to learn (which is worse), in an attempt to educate the disruptive students, or you put them in a situation whereby sitting in class is preferable to doing nothing for 6 hours.

You have to wonder why they don't want to learn. Look at stuff like Super Nanny and programmes where they send someone in to a disruptive school. The kids there look like they don't care but they get "tamed" (for want of a better word) and work. There are different reasons for why people don't appear to want to learn than just because they don't care. Even if you can make them sit in class without disrupting others, they're not gonna work or improve. You have to get down to earth with them.

Governments think that throwing money and resources at poorer schools will help but of course it won't, it's much more complicated than that. And as for expelling students that don't work hard enough, there's a good quote from a teacher on some documentary running at the moment where he basically says that expelling achieves nothing and means the student is lost forever, is more likely to end up jobless, a drug user, a criminal etc. I can't remember if he directly said this next bit but he seemed to say that if they did that they'd failed as teachers and people who were meant to improve and prepare their students for later life.

 

[Therumancer]

Lets face it, the British school system is a complete mess: we have people going to uni who don't need to, people who need serious help being grouped in with the rest of the students and we have so many people with degrees that jobs have become much harder to find for people who haven't got one. One thing that really hit me today was when some German kids came to our school for a school trip, and every one of them knew fluent English, I even had a lenghty conversation with one. Whereas in Britain, there is very little people who know any useful French or German by Year 8.

So escapees of Britain (preferably current students), what could the government do to improve the school system here.

I think that there should be much more training for teachers. The amount of teachers I had that would just hand out some sheet or a textbook then go to their computer and not even bother actually teaching us. Also, I think that teachers should be fired if they aren't doing a good job, I find it really sad when a really old and strict teacher gets to stay when a charismatic teacher that teaches in new and inventive ways always seem to go.

Well, english is the international language of trade and business, the simple fact that everyone who wants to go somewhere learns english says a lot for it's influance. English is one of the cases where you can generally get by being mono-lingual knowing it.

I'm one of those who has been pushing for English to become mandatory globally (it's getting close to that anyway) as a single, common language in of itself is going to be a great thing for communication and the spread of information. I don't care if people know others, but I think everyone should learn it. As far as it being unfair goes, it's in a position to make this viable, no other language really is.

That minor issue aside, the problem with the educational system and degrees is increasingly common to first world nations, where we are becoming victims of our own success so to speak. The US, Britan, etc... have the best educational systems and the best informed populations in the world, however being competitive societies this means that the competition occurs at an increasingly high level with the requirements for success going up as the average person obtains more and more in the way of general knowlege.

You might be saying "well, the US, Britan, and other first world powers lack in educational comparisons" but really that's not the case, such things are usually political stunts. For example China tends to rank highly, but the people they send to such things tend to be members of their educational elite, going up against the average student of other nations. In China, India, or other nations you generally don't see the factory workers, farmers, and menial labourers who live absolutly pathetic lives being trotted out as representitives and there are tons of them compared to the elite. In China for examle SARS got started due to people living with their livestock. As far as an overall average first world nations have their dregs, but even those people tend to be highly educated by global standards due to the way our system works... you can have guys with PHDs and Doctorates begging for change in the US for example. While there are some exceptions even your most pathetic bum likely has some high school education, and probably a couple years of college.

Overall I've been of the opinion that first world countries like the US and Britan need to dial back education somewhat, as shocking as that might sound. School is increasingly becoming about self validation, cultivating leadership skills, and similar things. Society needs far more workers than it does managers or highly skilled labour. In the US for example we produce far too many skilled workers and managers for the number of jobs, and due to the way they are conditioned nobody is willing to content themselves with very basic work. This contributes to things like illegal labour being hired due to so few people being willing to lure themselves down to their appropriate niche. Testing, and cultivating reasonable expectations based on that testing is probably not a bad idea.

As far as the issue with teachers go, well I tend to disagree there. In general a lot of the newer teachers coming in are more concerned with politics than education, and putting an increasingly liberal spin on things. To be honest I think historical re-inventionism and the like is one of the biggest problems we're dealing with right now, rather than a solution. Truthfully as more and more "new teachers" get involved I think the problems get worse, and honestly I have some serious concerns over what is going to happen with the educational system when the old guard that is holding it together is gone. Really what is needed is new teachers with old school attitudes.

That's my thoughts at any rate, but then again I'm from the US.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Solution? Get rid of the kids that only disrupt other's learning and stick them in a room to stare at a wall until they buck their fucking ideas up, and get the teachers who don't can't teach for shit, to keep an eye on them.

Well that wouldn't work. Sure, there needs to be a solution, but all that does is completely ruin their prospects. That kind of punishment doesn't work. They need help even if they don't want it at the time

From my experience, you can't make someone learn if they don't want to learn, so you either take away resources away from the kids who want to learn (which is worse), in an attempt to educate the disruptive students, or you put them in a situation whereby sitting in class is preferable to doing nothing for 6 hours.

You have to wonder why they don't want to learn. Look at stuff like Super Nanny and programmes where they send someone in to a disruptive school. The kids there look like they don't care but they get "tamed" (for want of a better word) and work. There are different reasons for why people don't appear to want to learn than just because they don't care.

Oh I know that, teaching technique is just as much to blame.

I we could clone Stephen Fry and have a Fry as teacher for every student, we'd probably have no disruptive children left.

But it shouldn't mean resources are taken away from the students who want to learn.

 

[AnarchistFish]

No, of course not. Resources aren't everything though. When our school hockey team plays every Wednesday we go to train at a comprehensive school down the road because they have an astro-turf. We were amazed how many more resources and expense they seemed to have been given. They had a gymn area with treadmills, the astro turf of course, and a generally more modern looking school.
Yet we still have by far the higher grades.

And Steven Fry forever o////////

 

[orangeban]

I think we have a serious problem in that private schools suck up the good teachers. Now, I know this isn't always true, but private schools tend to be able to afford the best equipment, and can be more generous with expelling kids, so teachers naturally prefer to go there. Not to mention that fact that private schools generally pay more anyway. This means that state schools tend to end up with worse teachers, the ones who couldn't get jobs at private schools. Which sucks big time and lends to this cycle where the rich get better education and the poor get suckier education.

And make university free. I realise that we have trouble where loads of people are going to university, but making people pay for it is not the answer.

Edit: Though I recognize that we should make universities free after we've fixed the economy.

 

[AnarchistFish]

I think we have a serious problem in that private schools suck up the good teachers. Now, I know this isn't always true, but private schools tend to be able to afford the best equipment, and can be more generous with expelling kids, so teachers naturally prefer to go there. Not to mention that fact that private schools generally pay more anyway. This means that state schools tend to end up with worse teachers, the ones who couldn't get jobs at private schools. Which sucks big time and lends to this cycle where the rich get better education and the poor get suckier education.

And make university free. I realise that we have trouble where loads of people are going to university, but making people pay for it is not the answer.

Edit: Though I recognize that we should make universities free after we've fixed the economy.

Don't you think it'd be a bit unfair that some people would have massive student loan debts whilst the people before and after them get away with it?

 

[Elivercury]

Oh dear, where to start.

The free schools idea is moronic, no arguments there. Really I think that they just need to scrap the bottom 25% of universities. We have far too many and many of them are of abysmal quality. I don't want to try and sound elitist or anything, but should someone who managed to get 2 E's and a U at A level really be allowed to get a degree? (For those unfamiliar with the UK grading system, U stands for "Ungraded" as your exam is that bad).

The number of people doing degrees who shouldn't be is devaluing degrees as a whole, creating far more graduates than there are jobs and giving students the reputation for being lazy drunkards. Not to mention fees could probably be lowered if we didn't waste so much money on the worst institutions.

As for secondary, I honestly think that "basic politics" should be a mandatory lesson. You don't need to teach them what every MP had for breakfast over the last 20 years, but at least give people a basic understanding of the 3 major parties, how our electoral system works, why it is important to vote, etc. If that happened then people might actually take voting seriously and put some thought into it. But that's probably just a pipedream of mine.

/end rant.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Oh dear, where to start.

The free schools idea is moronic, no arguments there. Really I think that they just need to scrap the bottom 25% of universities. We have far too many and many of them are of abysmal quality. I don't want to try and sound elitist or anything, but should someone who managed to get 2 E's and a U at A level really be allowed to get a degree? (For those unfamiliar with the UK grading system, U stands for "Ungraded" as your exam is that bad).

The number of people doing degrees who shouldn't be is devaluing degrees as a whole, creating far more graduates than there are jobs and giving students the reputation for being lazy drunkards. Not to mention fees could probably be lowered if we didn't waste so much money on the worst institutions.

As for secondary, I honestly think that "basic politics" should be a mandatory lesson. You don't need to teach them what every MP had for breakfast over the last 20 years, but at least give people a basic understanding of the 3 major parties, how our electoral system works, why it is important to vote, etc. If that happened then people might actually take voting seriously and put some thought into it. But that's probably just a pipedream of mine.

/end rant.

Well I'm a communist so personally I think voting in a parliamentary democracy is all but pointless and teaching people about the 3 main parties is therefore as well, but a subject about how society works and encouraging people to form an opinion on stuff like that would be very useful.

Also, if wages were more equal you might not have as many people trying to force themselves into universities to get jobs they aren't suited to, giving them useless degrees and screwing up their future. Instead going for things they're actually more skilled at.